Mr and Mrs Pooks

Mr and Mrs Pooks (aka Lewis and Clark), were on their way from their adventures in Tanzania to their home in San Francisco. En route, they decided to make best use of their 12 hr stopover in JFK by coming in to the city.

Beside myself with excitement, I rushed over to meet them for the brief time that we could. We exchanged warm hugs, and instantly I burst forth with the multitude of questions that had been swirling in my mind. Did they get to the top of Killimanjaro? What was it like? What about the safari, what did they see? And Zanzibar? Did they have pictures? And patiently, interrupted only by more questions, they recounted all the incidents of their month gone by. What the language was like, and the locals, and the food and the hiking. They brandished a laptop full of pictures, a visual account of their adventures.

We listened like silent disciples as anecdote after anecdote spilled out of them. All the funny things that had happened, how tired they'd been, what they'd loved, what they didn't.

And inevitably, we started missing them terribly all over again. Camping and hiking just wasn't the same, without Mr and Mrs Pooks. And their silly three-bedroom, floral orange tent. And their tandem bike.

San Francisco might be lovely and all, but I hope they move back to this crazy city.